Rose aphid

The rose aphid (Macrosifum rosae) mainly colonizes the rose and the dog rose. It also occurs on the strawberry and some fruit trees. In post-Soviet countries it is spread everywhere. Macrosifum rosae is a cosmopolitan. In glasshouses it is active all the year. The pest is an agent of viruses.

Biology. Life cycle

The apterous (a wingless virgin female) is nitidious, green or dark-brown, to 3.8 mm in length. Its head and thorax are yellow-green. The eyes are dark-brown. The forehead has a groove. The antennae are black. They are considerably longer than a body. The cornicles (tubules) are black, cylindrical and very long. The caudicle (tail) is long, sword-shaped, green. The alate (a winged virgin female) is more thin than the apterous, 2.8 mm in length. Its head and thorax are green-brown. The abdomen is dark-green with black rectangular spots at the sides. The antennae are black, nitidious, much longer than a body. The cornicles are black, long, cylindrical. The amphigen female is 3 mm in length. She is wingless. Her hind tibiae (shanks) are ventricose and covered with pseudosensoria. The male is winged. He has many rinaria on antennae.

Mode of life

The rose aphid is a facultative migrating species. The eggs overwinter on rose branches. In April-May the larvae of a progenitress hatch from them. The progenitress reproduces to 80 larvae of wingless and winged migrants during all her life. In the autumn the winged males and sexuparae (parthenogenetic females) return to the rose and the dog rose, and reproduce amphigenous females which lay the eggs for overwintering. In greenhouses this species multiplies parthenogenetically all the year.

Symptoms of injuries

The pest forms crowded colonies on young shoots, flower buds, stalks and the underside of leaf apparatus causing their morbid crumple. The flower buds affected by the pest don't open. The species is an agent of dangerous virus diseases.